Teresa.Stepzinski@jacksonville.com Anna Kay Webster (from left), her grandmother, Joan Jones, Blanche Dommer and Dommer's daughter, Trish Davis, look over stories and photographs in the memory book of the Northeast Florida Chapter of the World War II War Brides. Jones founded the chapter, and Dommer is a longtime member.

Photos by Teresa.Stepzinski@jacksonville.com Blanche Dommer (from left) and her daughter Trish Davis introduce themselves to Ruth Piatt, a newcomer to the Northeast Florida Chapter of World War II Brides, during an April 20 gathering in Orange Park. Dommer and Piatt are from England, but had never met each other until the chapter gathering.

ORANGE PARK - World War II was raging in the Pacific when Joan Jones took a roller coaster ride at her local amusement park. The distraction from the war launched a journey that would take her halfway around the globe and a lifetime away from her home in Melbourne, Australia.

Also riding the coaster that day was a U.S. Navy lieutenant who was among the American forces stationed in Melbourne to support Australian and New Zealand troops fighting to stave off a Japanese invasion. That chance meeting led to love between the USO volunteer and the naval officer who’d been strangers until that day.

Just 18 and without ration stamps to buy dress material, she borrowed an aunt’s wedding gown to marry Lt. Thomas William Green on Feb. 6, 1946.

With their wedding vows, she joined the ranks of World War II foreign-born brides of American servicemen. A few months later, she boarded a transport ship along with about 400 other newlywed brides to the United States. She went to live with his family in Missouri until he could join her to start their lives together.

“I was young and in love … and it was all a big adventure then,” Jones said of the path that ultimately led her to reach out to other war brides after Green died in 2004, and she remarried.

Jones, 86, of Keystone Heights, founded the Northeast Florida Chapter of World War II War Brides four years ago. War grooms also are welcome as are members’ children and grandchildren.

She’d learned of the national organization from Australian newspaper articles about a war brides reunion on ANZAC Day, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps national day of remembrance. That inspired her to start the local chapter.

The Northeast Florida chapter has about 18 members. They included brides originally from Australia, Bermuda, England, Finland, France, Germany and New Zealand.

Meeting monthly, the group offers camaraderie, a chance to share stories and pass on their experiences to children and grandchildren. The brides talk about how they met their husbands, their first experiences in America and their families. They also participate in projects aiding veterans and active-duty troops.

“It’s nice to reminisce and talk about things that nobody really knows about, but we do, because we’ve all gone through it,” said Blanche Dommer, 89, who met and married her husband, Joseph, when he was in the U.S. Army Air Force stationed at an air base near her home in Norwich, England.

They met on a Valentine’s Day blind date arranged by one of her girlfriends, Dommer said.

“I didn’t talk to him the whole night. Well, he kept calling me up asking for a date after that and I thought, why not? What did I have to lose?” she said while smiling at the memory of the date that’s blossomed into 61 years of marriage for the Orange Park couple.

Obstacles followed in the wake of the wartime wedding vows.

For Joyce Conner, 90, it was six months before she could join her Navy corpsman husband in the United States. Farris Conner had been attached to Marine division fighting on Guadalcanal. A friend introduced them in 1943 while he was stationed in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. After they married, she had to get on a waiting list for war brides to get on a troop transport ship to the United States. She was among a couple of hundred brides who made the 16-day ocean voyage. It was rocked by rough seas and had to zigzag to avoid enemy submarines.

“I got awfully seasick but the conditions really weren’t bad,” said Conner, who was married 30 years before her husband died in 1973.

Relocating to America was hard but it was rougher on their families back home, they said.

“You get homesick as you get older. When you’re young, you’re excited. You’re full of dreams and hopes. You’re going off on an adventure,” Ruth Piatt said.

She was a catering company waitress in Cambridgeshire when she met her husband, Jim Piatt, who was a U.S. Air Force staff sergeant stationed at nearby Alconbury Royal Air Force Base. He’d come to England after a tour of duty in Vietnam during the war. Now living in Orange Park, both were 23 when they got married 42 years ago.

“My mother was very distressed I was leaving, but she never actually showed it. But my father later told me she’d been crying for several months before I left,” Ruth Piatt said.

Culture shock was common. New Zealand native Sylvia Dunn met and married her Navy husband, John, in Christchurch, while he was assigned to Antarctic support duties. When he brought her home to Jacksonville, it was a little bewildering at first.

“The light switches were upside down. The phone dial was back to front. The cars were on the wrong side of the road and the steering wheel was on the opposite side. It was terrible,” Dunn recalled with a laugh.

The brides have put their stories in writing. Along with wedding photos, they’ve collected them in a hand-made memory book. The book, “How I Met My Husband,” contains 27 stories.

“Everybody’s story is different. It’s history and it’s important to pass the stories along. It’s a legacy,” Jones said.